Former Vice President Joe Biden is opening up about son Beau Biden’s final moments in a new interview with Oprah Winfrey.
During a personal and emotional interview on Winfrey’s “SoulSunday,” the former vice president shared a small glimpse into the final hours he spent with Beau, the former Delaware attorney general who died of a brain tumor in 2015, telling her that he was there “holding his hand” when he died.
"(Beau) looked at me and he said, 'Dad, I'm not afraid. I'm OK,' " the former vice president said.
“It was at the very end. His brother (Hunter) was sitting there. The three of us were holding hands and (Beau) wanted to reassure us (that he was OK),” Biden said.
This wasn’t the first time that Beau tried to reassure his father, though. During the interview, Biden told WInfrey that while Beau, then 46, was in the hospital, he would tell his father to “stop looking sad.”
“I’d see him and he’d say, ‘Dad, look at me. Stop looking sad. No matter what happens, I’m gonna be alright, Dad. You’ve got to look happy. You’ve got to look strong for the family,’” he said.
Biden also revealed that the pain of losing his son hasn’t gone away, but he knows his son is still with him thanks to Beau’s children. “What I do is I look at my grandson — his son — and I see him. I look at my granddaughter, I see her. And I know (Beau)’s still here. He’s still with me.”
During his interview with Winfrey, the former vice president also answered other lingering questions, such as if he’s planning on running for president in 2020 and if he thinks he could have beaten Hillary Clinton had he decided to run in 2016.
“I’m, as I said, a great respecter of fate,” he said. “I’m over 70. I’m — thank God — right now in awful good health. But I don’t know what things are going to be two years from now. So I just don’t know. I promise you: I’m not doing anything to organize running, but I’m going to go out there and continue to do what I’ve done since I’ve been 26 years old: holler.”
Biden also revealed that he thinks he could have beaten Clinton, saying, "Yes, but it would have been an incredibly difficult race, and I have nothing but friendship for Hillary."
He also reiterated that the reason he did not run for president was his son’s cancer.
“It was real simple. My son was dying. I couldn’t tell anybody. The only person I could confide in was Barack. He’s the only one who had to know.”
But he couldn’t announce that he wasn’t running due to his son’s cancer because Beau “would have killed,” He said adding, “he wanted me to run.”
Joe Biden's new book, "Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose," which chronicles the months surrounding Beau's death, is set to be released on Tuesday.
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